Facts of the case

In 2000, the citizens of California passed Proposition 22, which affirmed a legal understanding that marriage was a union between one man and one woman. In 2008, the California Supreme Court held that the California Constitution required the term "marriage" to include the union of same-sex couples and invalidated Proposition 22. Later in 2008, California citizens passed Proposition 8, which amended the California Constitution to provide that "only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized by California."

The respondents, a gay couple and a lesbian couple, sued the state officials responsible for the enforcement of California's marriage laws and claimed that Proposition 8 violated their Fourteenth Amendment right to equal protection of the law. When the state officials originally named in the suit informed the district court that they could not defend Proposition 8, the petitioners, official proponents of the measure, intervened to defend it. The district court held that Proposition 8 violated the Constitution, and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit affirmed.

Question

Do the petitioners have standing under Article III of the Constitution to argue this case?

Does the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment prohibit the state of California from defining marriage as the union of one man and one woman?

John G. Roberts, Jr.:

Finally this term I have the opinion of the Court in case 12-144, Hollingsworth versus Perry.

In 2008, the California Supreme Court decided that limiting the official designation of marriage to opposite sex couples violated the California Constitution.

Later that year, California voters passed the ballot initiative at the center of this dispute known as Proposition 8.

That proposition amended the California Constitution to provide that “only marriage between a man and a woman is valid and recognized in California.”

Respondents, two same sex couples who wish to marry, filed suit in federal court, challenging Proposition 8 under the Due Process and Equal Protection Clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Federal Constitution.

The complaint named as defendants California's Governor and various other state officials responsible for enforcing California's marriage laws.

Those officials refused to defend the law and the District Court allowed petitioners, the official proponents of the ballot initiative, to defend it instead.

After trial, the District Court declared Proposition 8 unconstitutional and prohibited California officials from enforcing it.

Those officials chose not to appeal the court order.

When the initiative proponents did, the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit decided it was necessary to direct the question about California law to the California Supreme Court.

There is a procedure for doing that under the federal rules.

The Ninth Circuit asked the California court “whether under California law, the official proponents of a ballot initiative like Proposition 8 possess the authority to defend the constitutionality of initiative when the public officials charged with that duty refuse to do so.

The California Supreme Court answered, “Yes.”

Relying on that answer, the Ninth Circuit found that the proponents could defend the constitutionality of Proposition 8 in federal court.

On the merits, the Ninth Circuit concluded that Proposition 8 was unconstitutional under the Equal Protection Clause of the Federal Constitution and affirmed the District Court order.

We granted certiorari to review that determination.

Before addressing the merits of the question in this case, however, we must assure ourselves that we have authority under the Federal Constitution to do so.

We do not have general authority to answer questions of federal constitutional law that happen to come up from time to time.

Instead we have authority under Article III of the Constitution to resolve particular cases or controversies.

And sometimes, in doing that, it is necessary to decide a question of constitutional law.

That's where our authority comes from.

So, it is very important to make sure that we have before us an actual case or controversy.

As used in the Constitution, those words do not include every sort of dispute, but only those, as we put it in a prior precedent, “historically viewed as capable of resolution through the judicial process.”

This is an essential limit on our power.

It ensures that we act as judges deciding cases and do not engage in general policy making properly left to elected representatives.

For there to be, such a case or controversy, it is not enough that the party invoking the power of the Court have a keen interest in the issue.

That party must also have -- what our cases refer to as standing.

To have standing to invoke the power of a federal court, a litigant must prove that he has suffered a concrete and particularized injury that is traceable to the defendant and could be redressed by the federal court.

That requirement must be met by person seeking appellant review just as it must be met by person's appearing in Court for the first time.

The parties in this case do not contest that respondents, the same sex couples, had standing to initiate the case in the District Court against the California officials responsible for enforcing Proposition 8.